Raidon arrived at the three-story tenement and climbed the outer stairs to the top floor room he shared. The door was open. Good. Perhaps the chamber would be aired out-
A man flew from the open door, a staff in his grip. His tattooed hand proclaimed his Golden Swords allegiance, though Raidon could hardly discern it through the blood that streaked the man's hands and forearms. What had he been up to?
The newcomer stabbed at Raidon's neck with the staff's sharp butt. Raidon deflected it with his left forearm, making a wide circle. He held the daito in his right hand-he could better defend himself if he dropped the blade, but he couldn't bring himself to dishonor the implement he'd spent so many months recovering. Instead, he grasped the wrapped tsuka and brought the blade up.
A daito wasn't the perfect weapon to defend against a staff wielder, who had longer reach. But Raidon's advantage was his ability to put his mind outside his body. When he could coolly observe a conflict, he could take in every variable, every possibility, and react in a way most likely to end the conflict quickly in his favor.
Raidon feinted and stepped back, then again. The staff wielder advanced, encouraged by Raidon's backpedaling, jabbing with the probing end of the long wooden rod. When the man tried to push him off the walkway's edge, Raidon wove the end of the daito around the advancing pole, allowing the end to push into his space, but avoiding its tip. He hooked the staff and pulled, stepping to the side. The staff and its wielder flew off the three-story walkway.
He couldn't afford the time to watch the result of his maneuver. He dashed into his lodge, on guard for other Golden Swords. But the only one present was Huang. What was left of him.
He had never liked Huang, but he regretted the man's end. His lodge mate was staked to the wall, his extremities removed by a hatchet, which lay on the floor amid the awful mess. Raidon pulled his focus even further from his body to avoid reacting. Time was too precious to mourn Huang, or lose the tea he'd consumed to nausea.
Everything was in shambles, but Raidon found the pack he'd secreted behind the wall panel undisturbed. He'd prepared it a few tendays ago, in case his petition was granted and he penetrated the Nine Golden Swords compound. That hadn't happened; fate had stepped in and delivered his target early. The pack contained some food, a small tea kettle and four cups, an expensive packet of loose Long Jing tea, a pouch of coins, a change of clothing. Next to the pack was a delicate cedar box. He stuffed that into the bag, too.
What lay inside the box was more precious to him than the daito.
He left the room, his feet leaving behind a few bloody prints.
Five men pounded up the stairway, heavy swords unsheathed. They reached the second floor as Raidon watched. The monk tightened the packs straps holding it to his back, held the daito straight out with one hand, then flipped off the edge of the walkway not far from where he'd pushed Huang's tormentor. Unlike the bloody-handed hatchet wielder, who still lay groaning, his limbs painfully askew, Raidon dropped in a series of graceful rolls, one hand free to catch, slow, and moderate his fall. He landed none the worse for wear and sprinted north, toward Waihun Road.
The men in the lead saw him, yelled, and turned to dash back the way they'd come, but the men below, who hadn't seen Raidon jump down, suddenly became obstacles to those higher up who reversed course.
Raidon left them all behind. He plunged into the cloaking anonymity of the crowd.
The monk passed into the gloriously decorated Shou Gate. The grand structure marked the most widely used route between the Shou community and the greater city of Telflamm that hosted the foreign district. Elaborate lamps sculpted to resemble golden dragons lit the way. Raidon had played near the gate, against the directives of his mother and father, as a child. Pretending to be some silk-draped trader arriving from mysterious eastern lands had been his favorite diversion.
As the gate fell behind his carefully measured steps, he wondered if he'd ever see it again.
The streets of greater Telflamm were different from Shou Town. Alien. He recognized many Shou walking the streets, but the smells, the markets, the structures, even the people, Shou and non-Shou alike-everything was atypical of the streets just blocks away. He wondered why the Shou Towners kept themselves apart from the natives of the lands they now called home. Afraid of losing their traditions? Unhappy with the culture of the indigents? Western traditions were somewhat known to Raidon. He suspected he was about to become intimately familiar with many things formerly unknown.
As he walked, he decided against the docks-it was the first place he'd thought of to flee Telflamm. The Nine Golden Swords would hit on the same strategy. So he hurried down the cobblestone streets in the opposite direction. His destination was the trade road that passed southeast out of the city. Perhaps he could sign onto a caravan heading to Two Stars. He'd always wanted to make that trip. It would be his coming-of-age journey, he decided.
Perhaps he eluded the Nine Golden Swords. Or maybe they gave up the chase of their own accord. Whatever the reason, Raidon was unmolested when he exited the city proper through high gates. As best he could determine, no Golden Sword marked his departure.
He questioned a few seedy-looking merchants whose wheeled stalls were set up just outside Telflamm's legal boundary. They pointed him down the road toward a rambling edifice surrounded by stables, carts, and several large warehouses-an eatery called the Leaping Ogre Taproom. According to one gap-toothed fellow, the place was a touchstone used by caravans departing and arriving in Telflamm down the Golden Way. Raidon learned he could get a job working a trade wagon if he was "good with that sword you got there-watch it! Put it away, why don't you?"
Raidon required a sheath for his daito-a saya, as they called it in Shou Town. Carrying a naked blade in one free hand was attracting unwelcome attention. And despite his joy at regaining the blade, it proved awkward for all activities not related to fighting. He asked among the vendors and found his way to an old chicken keeper. The suspicious looking woman sold him a ratty saya for an obscene price. Raidon didn't have time to haggle. He had enough coins in his pouch to cover the price, barely, and besides, he'd soon find work on the road.
The Leaping Ogre Taproom was a bustle of activity. Raidon quickly learned that all new work was assigned at dawn outside, in front of the tavern. In the meantime, would he like a tankard of mead?
Raidon demurred, and instead spent the remainder of his coin on a room for the evening, a private room. He didn't want to find any more lodge mates strung up and dismembered. Tomorrow, if he landed a position with an outgoing trader, he'd be sharing living space with other hired hands soon enough.
He pulled out the cedar box where he kept his mother's forget-me-not. He hadn't gazed at the shining blue stone for some tendays. He'd been too busy as his plans for infiltrating the Nine Golden Swords moved toward culmination.
Raidon considered. Was his attachment to the old amulet a childish behavior he should leave behind with his departure from his home? It looked valuable; he could probably sell it for a reasonable sum. But his sentimental attachment to the object was forged over a decade of ownership. Raidon believed that as long as the stone shone, his mother, wherever she had gone, kept him in her thoughts. Selling it was out of the question.
He opened the box-
— and saw in an instant that the blue field around the tree was obscured in darkness.